A BURGLAR who preyed on elderly women and broke into their homes at night has been jailed.

Jonathan Downs, 25, was on parole from a three-year sentence for raiding the central York home of a 61-year-old woman in the dark when he disturbed a Rawcliffe pensioner as she slept in her bed.

When a police sergeant spotted him some days later and arrested him, Downs bit the officer on the leg.

His latest sentence was the eighth time York courts had locked him up for house raids. He committed his first house burglary when he was 13.

Judge Rodney Jameson QC said: “It is absolutely in everybody’s best interests you do what you can and make the most of the custodial sentence that is passed upon you.” He jailed Downs for three years and eight months. He heard that the Ministry of Justice had already recalled Downs to prison to serve the unserved part of the three-year sentence passed for the central York raid.

Downs, who used the name Jonathan Doherty when he lived in York, and was most recently living in Chestnut Avenue, Retford, Nottinghamshire, pleaded guilty to burglary, attempted burglary and assault with intent to resist arrest.

Bashir Ahmed, prosecuting at York Crown Court, said the Rawcliffe victim woke in the early hours of November 5 as Downs entered her bedroom.

She thought he was her son and did not realise they had been burgled until her son told her the following morning.

Downs stole three bottles of wine and a handbag.

The same night, at 3am, Downs tried to get into another house in Rawcliffe, But he woke the occupant and made off. Police spotted him in the area with two other people, but he managed to get away.

On December 13, when the police sergeant and another officer arrested him, he struggled and bit the sergeant.

His barrister Taryn Turner said the bite did not break the officer’s skin because he was wearing thick trousers.

He was addicted to drugs and alcohol and stole to fund his habits. But he was now on a heroin substitute and was learning bricklaying in prison.